It meant nothing to 2008, which became a disaster that left the head coach and GM out of work, to send six players from the 2007 team to the Pro Bowl.

Maybe things will work in reverse this time, and the rotten year from which five Browns were elected will be followed by a good one.

The 2007 Pro Bowl group was flawed.

Derek Anderson went as an injury replacement and had already begun to erode as a starter-quality QB as the season wore on. I remember thinking while watching him in the Pro Bowl: Hey, D.A., the receiver was over there.

Braylon Edwards and Kellen Winslow were in their primes, but Edwards' makeup and Winslow's surgically repaired body worked against them. Based on what they would do after 2007, the two together didn't amount to half of what Josh Gordon promises.

Speaking of prime time, we'll guess the Browns will be assigned a Monday night game for the first time since 2009. They had three of them in 2008.

• • •

Joe Thomas is campaigning hard for Alex Mack to be re-signed. That is no small consideration for the men who will be making the offer.

Mack reminds us a bit of the Ben Grubbs case. Ozzie Newsome did not want to lose Grubbs, a guard. Neither did he want to overpay for an interior offensive lineman.

Grubbs bolted to New Orleans and was elected to the Pro Bowl yesterday.

Joe Banner has more money to play with relative to Mack than Newsome did with Grubbs.

• • •

One of my sons was stunned to hear Jordan Cameron is one of the Pro Bowlers.

Nice player, he thinks, but too often didn't meet the eyeball test as to Pro Bowl playmaking standards.

Respecting the view, I remembered the first Pittsburgh game, in which the tone-setting play came when the score was 3-all, just after Jason Campbell left with a rib injury.

Brandon Weeden came in cold but made a beautiful third-and-12 pass that would have netted a key first down but instead went right through Cameron's hands.

The Steelers seized the ball, on a punt, and the momentum, on a 41-yard TD pass to Antonio Brown that wouldn't have happened had Cameron caught that ball. He should have, as he himself lamented after the game.

• • •

On he other hand, I reasoned to my 20-year-old sage, Cameron's numbers are pretty good, and he has looked good often enough, most recently in what should have been a win at New England.